Teacher Valentines

I have been buying and hoarding collecting these cute little tin mailboxes from Target's $1 section for the past few years. Ever since Robyn aka My Pink Stamper posted a tutorial to alter the mailboxes, I have been meaning to make something with them. Finally, this year I crafted with them (and I still have at least 5 more in the craft room...shhh, no one tell my husband...then again, they are only $1, after all!)

I decided to go with a teacher theme instead of Valentine's Day, so that the teachers could use them throughout the year. I cut the 12x12 paper (from a DCWV stack) into strips that were just shy of 4" wide, wrapped them around to mark where the mailbox flag would be, punched a hole for the flag (and cut a small slit from the edge of the paper to the hole...see Robyn's video tutorial for better directions/a visual), wrapped the paper around again, using my ATG gun to adhere the edges on the bottom of the mailbox. I did use some scotch glue to make sure the small edges around the hole for the flag were stuck down well. The first time I tried this, I put ATG adhesive on the whole strip of paper (instead of just a on each end...it ended up crooked and when I tried to pull it off it ripped. So, don't make the same mistake as I did in that department!

The apple on the door of the mailbox is cut from Plantin Schoolbook cartridge - I cut a red and a green at 3" real dial size. Then I cut the stem off the red one and glue them together so the green stem would show behind the red apple. The teachers' names were printed from Microsoft Word, and I cut and glued them on after they were printed.



Inside each mailbox, I placed their valentine's day treats - gummi bears with a cute saying stapled to the top. Hopefully, the teachers will find something to use the mailboxes for during the year.